The article argues that the road to October 7, 2023 began on August 26, 2014, at the end of Operation Protective Edge, when Benjamin Netanyahu sent a delegation to Cairo to quickly end the war. The delegation was led by Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen and COGAT head Yoav, also known as “Puli,” Mordechai, while Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif met out of sight in Cairo. According to the author, Israel chose a return to routine and effectively abandoned the issue of the bodies of two soldiers, and that choice marked the loss of values and the start of a Hamas deception campaign that culminated on October 7.
The core of the piece is the claim that Israel failed a “value test” by not making the return of fallen soldiers and then civilians a condition for any deal or humanitarian relief. The author says Netanyahu abandoned Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, followed by Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, and that other senior officials, including Benny Gantz, Orna Barbivai and Aviv Kochavi, also sidelined the issue. The family says it was repeatedly told the matter had been handled, even as official reports, including a State Comptroller report in April 2017, barely mentioned the two soldiers. Le’a Goldin reportedly confronted Netanyahu directly, saying, “You turned the families of the captives into enemies of the people.”
The article says the Israeli “humanitarian” approach toward Gaza, food, water, electricity, medicine, salaries and work permits in exchange for calm, was itself part of the deception, because Hamas set the terms on prisoners and captives while Israel did not. It argues that fear, political bias and money sustained the concept, and cites Netanyahu’s 2019 statement that strengthening Hamas and transferring money was part of the strategy to block a Palestinian state. The author also blames Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Struk for reinforcing that logic while opposing prisoner releases.
Several military and political milestones are presented as proof of the failed concept. In January 2022, Kochavi’s “trilogy” speech described a strong deterrent after Operation Black Belt, Guardian of the Walls and Breaking Dawn, but the author says those operations did not test Hamas on the captives issue. He also cites Netanyahu’s victory rhetoric after Guardian of the Walls in May 2021, the completion of the Gaza barrier in December 2021 at a cost of 2 billion shekels, and the 2022 march from the Goldin family that grew from hundreds to more than 1,000 participants before police and the YAMAM riot unit stopped it near Yad Mordechai during Operation Breaking Dawn.
The piece concludes that October 7 exposed the deception and its price. Israel, it says, is now in a three-year war whose ending is still unknown, but the attack forced a better understanding of Hamas and of Israel’s own failures. The author says the essential lesson is that the problem and the solution cannot be the same thing.
